Category Archives: Father Franklyn William Becker

Pope Francis asked us survivors of priest rape and nun abuse of the Roman Catholic Church to forgive him the other day.
After talking to quite a few of my brother and sister survivors well….we find it rather insulting. These are the reasons why.

1. To be forgiven you MUST repent. Even Jesus Christ says this. To repent means you turn away from the evil you are asking forgiveness for. So has the Roman Catholic Church and Pope Francis and those whom committed either the crimes of cover ups and moving around of pedophile priests, or the priests themselves whom raped and abused us, and thus destroying our faiths, our lives, truly repented? In the opinions of the majority of priest and nun abuse survivors the answer is a resounding NO.

To truly show repentance, the Roman Catholic Church and Pope Francis must show real concrete action in cleaning this mess up and not just lip service and more empty promises to us.

Pope Francis MUST immediately fire and prosecute to the fullest extent the law allows and give the harshest penalties to all credibly accused Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops whom there is overwhelming evidence against they participated in these cover ups. We have positive proof many Cardinals, Bishops and Archbishops did in fact cover up these crimes against us. Through their own words, through Church documents, through whistleblower accounts by the likes of Father Thomas Doyle and other brave priests, nuns and yes, leaders whom find this evil just as disgusting as we do and a cancer destroying this church, we do in fact have overwhelming evidence, that if these people were brought before a court of law, they would be convicted of their crimes of cover ups. 80% of the Cardinals and other leaders currently in the United States participated in this cover up, there is more than enough evidence against them to prove this.

Their excuses are weak, they did not know this was a crime is one of the biggest insults that can be said to us. This has been said by many of those whom covered up these crimes, or that they were ill prepared to deal with this. Well to the victims of these crimes..this is just another example of hey…we know what we did was wrong, but we will make any excuse to cover our butts.

2. Another priest was found whom raped children and is now safely in Paraguay. His name is Father Carlos Urrutigoity. This is just one more of dozens of other priests whom have still escaped justice through the help of the Roman Catholic Church along with such Cardinals as Bernard Law.

Again, despite the clear warning, and complaints of sexual misconduct against him, Urrutigoity was allowed to continue living and working in the Diocese of Scranton. Two years later, he was being accused of sexual misconduct again, this time in court.

In a 2002 lawsuit against Urrutigoity, and another priest Eric Ensey and the Diocese of Scranton, the two priests were accused of a pattern of sexual misconduct. Urrutigoity was accused of giving alcohol and cigars to teenagers, sharing beds and sleeping bags with seminarians and inappropriately touching at least two young men. The alleged acts were cloaked in a bizarre dogma upon which Urrutigoity and Ensey had founded their society.

One former member of the Society of St. John said in a deposition that he slept in the same bed as Urrutigoity after the priest said it would help him overcome his “puritanical attitude.” After a few months of their sharing a bed, the seminarian woke one night to find the priest’s hand first on his abdomen, then on his penis.

In a deposition for the lawsuit, a former seminarian in Minnesota said Urrutigoity asked him to insert anal suppositories in front of him. When he refused, the young man said in a deposition, Urrutigoity was furious, calling the act a betrayal. Urrutigoity at least twice invited him to sleep in the same bed, the man said in the deposition. One night, he woke up to find Urrutigoity was molesting him, the seminarian said.

The Diocese of Scranton settled the lawsuit in 2004 for more than $400,000. It also sent Urrutigoity and Ensey to The Southdown Institute, an organization in Canada, for a detailed psychological evaluation.Instead he should have been defrocked and turned over to the police for prosecution.

Following that evaluation, the Diocese of Scranton’s Independent Review Board made its recommendation, which was noted in the confidential minutes of the board meeting:

“In view of the credible allegation from the seminarian, his admitted practice of sleeping with boys and young men, and the troubling evaluation by the Southdown Institute, Father Carlos Urrutigoity should be removed from active ministry; his faculties should be revoked; he should be asked to live privately.”

A criminal investigation launched by the Lackawanna County district attorney was stymied by a lack of cooperation from St. Gregory’s and Pennsylvania’s short statute of limitations on sex crimes, said Tom Dubas, the lead investigator on the case. Dubas wanted to launch a grand jury investigation, but never had the chance.

“As soon as it got out that I was interested in a grand jury, both priests just disappeared,” Dubas said. “We never did convene one.”
Then, in 2008, Urrutigoity began making headlines again, this time in far eastern Paraguay in the den of iniquity known as the Tri-Border Area.

In 2008, Javier Miranda, a Ciudad del Este resident who was once an active volunteer at local churches, learned of a recent influx of international priests. He decided to research the newcomers.

It didn’t take Miranda long to unearth the scandals that had followed Urrutigoity. Immediately, he protested against the priest’s presence in the diocese, and was soon joined by dozens more local volunteers and even a group of 12 local priests, who in 2009 signed a letter denouncing Urrutigoity as a divisive figure.

The bishop of Ciudad del Este, Rogelio Ricardo Livieres Plano, responded with a spirited defense of Urrutigoity, The priest had been slandered and persecuted, Livieres said. Miranda and other critics should join with the church in praying for a peaceful end to the controversy, he wrote on the diocese’s website.Miranda said far from being welcomed, he and the other vocal critics were ostracized by the church. Undeterred, Livieres continued to support Urrutigoity, not only was Urrutigoity active in the Catholic church in Paraguay, but he had been promoted to the position of vicar general, essentially the second most powerful post in the diocese of Ciudad del Este.

This rapist priest is still protected by the church. There are dozens and dozens more just like him, still protected and defended by those of the Roman Catholic Church.

This priest and all the others, including Cardinals like Bernard Law, whom is still protected by the Vatican, should be immediately fired, defrocked and prosecuted.

3. The church must stop hiding behind the statue of limitations they use against victims to avoid taking responsibility for their actions and paying for their crimes against us and make things right with the victims. Anything less would be pure hypocrisy.

They MUST keep their words and promises to us they signed onto with their Pledge to Protect and Promise to Heal charters with the Attorney Generals of each state.

The disgusting attacks against the priest rape victims MUST END. No more telling us because we did not punch our priests, we were responsible for our own rapes, or that we wanted to be raped and we enjoyed it and we are homosexuals because of it. No more blame games being put upon the victims of these evil crimes.

This is NOT a homosexual problem, this is a pedophile, hebephile and ephebophile problem. This is not just a sin, this is a crime, a FELONY crime and should be looked upon as such and these people whom have committed these crimes should be prosecuted. Just because they are the religious leaders of your church that does NOT give you the right to avoid prosecution for crimes you have committed, especially ones of rape, abuse and torture of children and teens. No more telling us priest rape survivors that we must forgive but must NEVER seek prosecution because that is Anti-Catholic and bigoted of us. Yes this problem exists in other denominations and other sections of the population. We find all of these crimes evil, disgusting and anyone whom rapes a child or covers it up should be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and this means EVERYONE whom commits these crimes, whether they be a Roman Catholic or anyone else. Just because you wear a religious robe should NOT give you an out from being prosecuted for your crimes. If anything, they should be prosecuted with that much more vigor because these people portray themselves to be the moral leaders, the spiritual leaders, the head of the church. Jesus Christ would condemn them, so why should not we? Jesus Christ would say they should be prosecuted…for did he not say render unto God that which is Gods and render unto Man that which is Man’s? That means not only are we supposed to follow Gods laws, but mans laws to. Raping children and covering up these crimes are not only contrary to Gods laws, but man’s laws too.

In conclusion…if Pope Francis and the Roman Catholic Church wishes for us survivors of these evil, disgusting crimes against us, then they must first truly repent. This means doing all that I have described. If we were to forgive this, right now, without true repentance shown on your part Pope Francis then that would make us hypocrites.

For even Jesus Christ said…to be forgiven of your sins. you must first truly repent of your sins.

What the church documents reveal

Opinion

When the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese recently released secret documents linked to how the church dealt with sexual abuse of children by priests, the headlines focused on former Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s plans to pay abusers to leave the priesthood and to move $57 million into cemetery funds to protect the money “from any legal claim or liability.”

But those aren’t the only stories revealed in some 6,000 pages of documents the church had kept confidential for decades. The documents also shed light on issues pedophile priests were dealing with both before and after they abused children. They include letters to priests from archbishops who failed to face the issue of child abuse head on. And they reveal the anguish of the victims and the victims’ parents.

The documents, which were released July 1 as part of the church’s bankruptcy case, reveal the human side of the scandal.

Some of the priests said they had been sexually abused as children. The victims were often insecure and searching for guidance. And archbishops, in addition to trying to protect the church, felt a pastoral responsibility to priests who were abusers.

Only a few of the accused priests were criminally charged; many denied they did anything wrong. Most left the priesthood with severance pay or were allowed to retire with a pension, health benefits and a place to live. Of the dozen priests included in this story, three are still alive but have been stripped of their priestly ministry: Franklyn Becker, Michael Krejci and Thomas Trepanier, according to archdiocese records.

This story is based on a close review of the pedophile priest files, which include candid letters exchanged between accused priests and archbishops; sexual abuse intake reports; psychological assessments; letters from archbishops to the Vatican seeking counsel or formal action against priests; and letters from victims and their parents.

The pedophile priests

The documents show that many of the priests did not consider themselves criminals, but victims. Some were addicted to alcohol or pornography. They did good work in the church and helped many people. But they also had a dark side they either struggled to control or did not acknowledge.

Many did not express guilt or remorse; they couldn’t understand why they were treated severely after they had accepted counseling and done everything the archdiocese asked of them. Some acknowledged conflicted sexual orientation, loneliness, self-loathing, an inability to form healthy adult relationships. Psychologists concluded that at least one priest’s emotional development was stunted.

“…There were allegations of my sexual abuse of minors some 30 years ago in a different parish. I express remorse and repent of these actions. However, for the good of the community I have decided that my continued presence at the parish is not helpful. I have been fully cooperative with the restrictions placed upon me. I do not exercise anyministry and am living out my life in a spirit of prayer and penance.This is a strong and loving parish community and I know you will respond to thisannouncement in the manner that is most appropriate, by praying for all those involved….”

” …you had indicated that you would grant me an unspecified amount of money as a severance. Because I have regular bills and a house payment, I ask that if it becomes necessary for a release from my orders, at that time you would consider an amount of $30,000 … I have tried to cooperate with the Archdiocese…I regret any pain I have caused you; I also have been in much myself.”

“Father Becker has admitted that a number of these acts of sexual assault occurred… While he attempts to present a defense based on cooperation and need for sustenance, in interviews with him, there is little display of repentance. His sorrow is not over what effect his immoral and abusive behaviors had on others, so much as it is remorse that he has lost a sense of status…”

“…Normal inhibiting mechanisms, such as guilt or remorse, do not appear to impede Michael’s problematic sexual behavior…”

Church officials

Each archbishop had his own way of addressing accused priests.

Archbishop William Cousins wrote terse, formal letters to inform priests they were being transferred, which occurred frequently and quietly during his tenure from 1959 to 1977. Cousins did not document much, reflecting a time when sex abuse accusations against priests were not openly discussed.

Weakland, archbishop from 1977 to 2002, consistently expressed concern for the priests’ well-being and told them he was doing what was best for them and the church. He also exchanged letters with victims, acknowledging the bad effects of what had happened and encouraging them to forgive because “forgiveness brings spiritual growth.”

Weakland resigned in 2002 amid revelations that he had used church money to pay a $450,000 settlement to a man with whom he had had a sexual relationship years earlier.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, whose tenure from 2002 to 2007 coincided with a change in direction by the Vatican in dealing with sex abuse cases, wrote stern letters to priests about their actions, while expressing concern for their well-being. In his letters to victims, Dolan apologized for their pain and offered them counseling services.

“Although Michael has apparently expressed remorse to you, I have not seen that remorse translate into action. The victim in this case requested a token amount of money as a gesture of recognition of the harm he had caused; Michael has consistently and adamantly refused to do so…This was not a one-time incident of indiscretion.

“There have to be consequences to actions. I do not doubt that an all-merciful God has forgiven Michael but an all-just God will also probably require some purgation for these actions…Michael’s life of solitude is made possible because we are paying his subsidy and could be doing so for the next 10 years until he is eligible for pension…I am not sure how we can justify this as ‘good stewardship’ of the resources people have entrusted to us… How do I honestly look a victim-survivor in the face in mediation and say we are acting consistently with Pope John Paul II’s statement that ‘there is no place in the priesthood for those who would harm a child?'”

“We forgive those priests who have been guilty of this crime and sin, once they admit it — as most do, painfully and admirably — ask for mercy and repent. We know God forgives them; we must forgive them too; and I hope they can forgive themselves.

“Forgiveness, however, does not eliminate the need for those accused to take responsibility, to be held accountable for their behavior.”

“…While we await clearer resolution from the Holy See and the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, I just wanted you to know that I have not forgotten about you, and that you have my love, concern, and prayerful solidarity…”

Dolan added a handwritten note in the margin: “Thanks for the green tea! I’ll be in touch soon.”

“…Every time you appear in public this way at the altar, Eldred, you risk stirring up people who have brought allegations. The network of such victims is enormous and very aggressive. You risk much unfortunate bad publicity against yourself, the priesthood and the Diocese…”

The victims

They were altar boys. Kids in need of a friend or a counselor. Boys and girls who for whatever reason caught the eye of the priest at school or in church. Perhaps the priest initially made them feel special with gifts or extra attention — a sleepover or a vacation on a Caribbean cruise. One priest invited boys to go up north on a camping trip in a hearse.

“…I cannot keep our secret about your life as a terrible molester at our school…You made us hate the Catholic church because we couldn’t understand how you could be such a hypocrite of a priest who taught us about God while you were the secret molester…

“I would lie awake every night shaking in fear that this would be a night you would touch me …Jesus on the cross on the wall saw you coming every night to molest us. He must have been shocked and grieved every time. I hope he cried like we did, because we were innocent children… The depth of your destruction is like a deep, dark, bottomless pit that has no end…The very least you could do is be sorry, but you aren’t…

“God lets no one into heaven who is not deeply, truly, and shamefully sorry for his sins — in your case, atrocities…My shame and my dirty secret are back where they belong, with you, their creator.”

“As I later found out, this priest had a record in his previous parish and after leaving Whitefish Bay, continued on his merry way in parish after parish, both here and out of state….

“At the time that his offense against my son occurred, I was (redacted) very vulnerable and very committed to seeing that my children be educated in Catholic schools. That’s how he came to know my sons; we took him into our hearts and into our family…

“At no time did it ever occur to me to sue the Archdiocese or the priest… Money could never heal the scars left by one priest’s indiscretion. However, Archbishop Weakland, don’t for a minute smugly think that the only cases of clergy abuse out there are the ones that sue/or run to the media. All I really wanted over the past years was an acknowledgment by you and the Archdiocese that this problem existed and the seriousness of it….

“In addition to a deep sense of guilt for allowing, or even encouraging this to happen to my son some years ago, I have in the past few years experienced a loss of faith, an indifference to the church I was brought up in and now a real bitterness that this particular priest had been ‘rewarded’ with early retirement for a lifetime of botched assignments due to his fondness for the altar boys.”

“…I fought as hard as I could for what seemed an eternity, and fortunately when he lost his grip on me I was able to run away. He tried to give chase but must have pulled something in his calf or hamstring area and fell to the ground (Jesus must have been with me).

“The next day in church it just galled me to hear other parishioners express their concern over Father Nuedling’s ‘bad limp’ and how it must have hurt…I just wonder how many other little boys this evil man harmed?”

The victim responded: “Thank you for the card and thoughts at Christmas… By the tone of your note…I see that you are also reflecting on your past life…and you know exactly what I am talking about.As I stated earlier, it is a time for forgiveness and hope. I forgive you for the things you have done to me. I hope you can make peace with your god…”

When it was time for his first confession, a 9-year-old victim thought he could anonymously tell a trusted adult about Father Siegfried Widera. But something stopped him, according to a letter he wrote as an adult on Aug. 1, 2002:

“…As I entered that booth, I was determined to end this. It was only to my horror that I entered the confessional and heard that voice that could belong to only one man. I can still to this day feel the devastation that entered me that day and the thought that it was a sign from God to keep my mouth shut. I went home that night and cried. A memory that burns in me to this day.

“A sense of relief only came after I found out he was gone. No explanation to the students and none that I can remember hearing about to the adults… I already know that this man was transferred to another church and he did it again. I live with the thought that I could have stopped this if only I had come forward sooner. And now I know that this man is on the run…

“I only wish I believed enough in prayer to pray for any child he comes across.”

Less than a year after the letter was written, Widera leaped to his death from a hotel balcony in Mexico as officials closed in to arrest him. He had been on the run for more than a year, and authorities considered him one of the most wanted sex-crime fugitives in the Western Hemisphere.

In a major turning point in its nearly 3-year-old bankruptcy, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday is scheduled to make public thousands of pages of documents detailing the sexual abuse of minors by priests going back decades, and what church leaders did — and did not do — in response.

The records will contain parts of 42 priests’ personnel files as well as depositions of former Archbishop Timothy Dolan, now cardinal of New York; retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland; retired Bishop Richard Sklba; and now-defrocked priest Daniel Budzynski.

Most of the information, which is being released as part of an agreement in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings, has never been seen publicly.

According to interviews and court records, the documents are expected to include: details about how church officials shuttled abusive priests from one parish or school to the next without divulging their histories; correspondence between the archdiocese and the Vatican, which has the final word on defrocking priests; evidence that the archdiocese under Dolan paid some priests to accept that decision without protest; and graphic accounts of sexual assault of young people.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley has acknowledged in court the disturbing nature of some of the documents. Earlier this year, commenting on the case of Franklyn Becker, a priest who molested at least 10 teenage boys beginning in the 1960s, Kelley said: “Every time I have to read his file, I’m just devastated.”

Jeffrey Anderson, who represents most of the 575 men and women who filed sex abuse claims in the bankruptcy, argued for the release of the documents and called it a victory for victims and survivors.

“From the outset, what survivors have wanted most is to protect other kids,” said Anderson. “And the only way you can do that is to have full disclosure of what has been done in the past.”

Listecki, who was not available for this story, worried in his letter how victims would weather the public release of such information. To some, that rang hollow.

“Releasing these documents is not going to hurt us. The damage has been done. We can’t suffer any more than we already have,” said Charles Linneman of Sugar Grove, Ill.

Linneman was abused by Becker at the age of 14 at St. John’s Parish in South Milwaukee and now serves as chairman of the bankruptcy creditors committee.

“I haven’t met one survivor who wants those documents to stay sealed,” he said.

They include some of the archdiocese’s worst sex offenders. Among them: the late Father Lawrence Murphy, who is believed to have molested as many as 200 deaf boys, most during his decades at St. John School for the Deaf in St. Francis; and Sigfried Widera, who was facing 42 counts of child abuse in Wisconsin and California when he jumped to his death from a Mexico hotel room in 2003 as authorities closed in.

All of the files will be redacted to omit names and other information that would identify victims, their families or those who reported the abuse who were not employed by the local archdiocese or another Catholic entity. They also will omit private medical information and information covered by attorney-client privilege.

The cache will not include the records of religious order priests, brothers and nuns; or teachers and others accused in bankruptcy claims. Also omitted will be three defrocked or deceased priests who appear on the archdiocese’s list — James Godin, Roger Schneider and Donald Musinski. In the case of Godin and Schneider, their victims could be identified; as for Musinski, he was added late in the process.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, many of whose members have claims in the bankruptcy, has criticized the limited nature of the release and called on the archdiocese to add to its list religious order priests and other offenders who worked in the archdiocese’s parishes, schools and other ministries in the 10-county area.

Nearly a dozen religious order men and women have substantiated allegations against them, according to news accounts, court records and a database of abuser priests maintained by the nonprofit Catholic watchdog site www.bishop-accountability.org. And victims’ attorneys say there are 100 known or accused offenders identified in bankruptcy claims — 75 of them priests — who do not appear on the archdiocese list.

“Every clergy person known to have harmed or assaulted a child — every teacher, every person who worked in the archdiocese — should be on that list. For public safety,” said Peter Isely, SNAP’s Wisconsin director, who was sexually assaulted by a Capuchin priest while a student at St. Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary in the 1970s.

The records to be released have been under seal as part of a protective order issued by Kelley early in the bankruptcy to protect victims and some of the accused. The order is so broad that even legal arguments must be filed under seal.

The archdiocese had fought the release for months — as it has in past court cases — saying victims could inadvertently be identified. But it reversed course in April after Kelley made it clear in court that she was likely to unseal at least some of the documents.

The archdiocese on Saturday issued a series of talking points and a Q&A for priests and parishes to address the issue. It makes no mention of Kelley’s comments. Instead, it says, it decided to release the records “as part of our commitment to open and candid communication.”

Interest in depositions

The depositions are expected to draw particular scrutiny, especially any new information connected to Dolan, who led the Milwaukee Archdiocese from 2002 to 2009. Now considered the most powerful American bishop, he was heralded at the time for his outreach to victims. But since then, allegations have been made that in anticipation of the bankruptcy filing, he directed the movement of millions of dollars into special trusts in an attempt to shield them from abuse settlements. Both Dolan and the archdiocese have denied the allegations.

Sklba’s deposition will also be examined closely because as auxiliary bishop he was, in Weakland’s words, the “go-to” person for dealing with sex abuse cases. In anticipation of Monday’s document release, Sklba wrote what he called “a few words of introduction” to his deposition.

“Although the decisions I made and the actions I took to deal with clergy offenders were done in good faith and in light of the knowledge available at the time, I deeply regret any initial judgments which added to the pain of victims of this tragedy,” he wrote.

In their letters, both Listecki and Sklba emphasized a common theme within the church hierarchy throughout the sex abuse scandal — that the understanding of child sex abuse has evolved, and that — to use Listecki’s words, “it is easy to question decisions of the past with the insight of today.”

Over 40 years, Sklba wrote, “society’s general attitude toward perpetrators of sexual abuse moved in a trajectory from understanding abuse as sin with the possibility of forgiveness, to psychological flaw with hope of treatment, to deeper issues of addiction and finally to criminal activity.”

The Milwaukee Archdiocese has been in bankruptcy since January 2011, becoming the eighth Catholic diocese to file for Chapter 11 protection to minimize its liability in mounting sex abuse lawsuits. Under Chapter 11, a debtor and creditors negotiate a reorganization plan that would allow the debtor to compensate creditors — primarily sex abuse victims, in these cases — and retain enough in the way of assets to continue to operate.

Victims believe the documents will prove the archdiocese defrauded them by knowingly moving abusive priests from one parish or school to the next without divulging their histories — the allegation underlying their claims to compensation.

The archdiocese denies the fraud. But if it had defrauded victims, its lawyers have argued, the clock on the six-year statute of limitations started ticking by at least 2004 when it first posted the names of 42 abusive priests on its website.

Clergy sex abuse victims to see Milwaukee archdiocese files

Written by M.L. JOHNSON Associated Press Jun. 23, 2013

MILWAUKEE — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee plans to make dozens of priests’ personnel files public in the next week, along with hundreds of pages of other documents that sex abuse victims hope will hold church leaders accountable for transferring abusive priests to other parishes and concealing their crimes for decades.

The documents are being released as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court between the archdiocese and victims suing it for fraud. The archdiocese has said the records will include personnel files for 42 priests with verified claims of abuse against them, along with depositions from top church officials, including New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who previously led the Milwaukee archdiocese. The documents are to be posted on the archdiocese’s website by July 1.

Similar files made public by other Roman Catholic dioceses and religious orders have detailed how leaders tried to protect the church by shielding priests and not reporting child sex abuse to authorities. The cover-up extended to the top of the Catholic hierarchy. Correspondence obtained by The Associated Press in 2010 showed the future Pope Benedict XVI had resisted pleas in the 1980s to defrock a California priest with a record of molesting children. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led the Vatican office responsible for disciplining abusive priests before his election as pope.

Archdiocese officials in Milwaukee have long acknowledged that abusive priests were transferred to new churches with no warning to parishioners. Former Archbishop Rembert Weakland publicly apologized to a Sheboygan church for this in 1992, and in a 2008 deposition previously made public, he spoke of multiple cases in which church leaders were aware of priests’ histories but members were not. Still, victims have pushed aggressively for the priests’ files to be released.

Charles Linneman, 45, of Sugar Grove, Ill., said he was an altar boy when he met Franklyn Becker at St. Joseph’s Parish in Lyons in southeastern Wisconsin in 1980 and was abused by him when he visited Becker following the priest’s move to Milwaukee. Linneman read Becker’s file several years ago when it became public during litigation in California, where Becker also served.

Linneman said he had long wondered whether coming forward before he did in 2002 would have kept other children from being hurt. It was a relief, he said, when the file showed no reports of children being abused after him.“It helped me move on,” Linneman said. But it also led him to leave the Catholic church, stunned by what he saw as a massive cover-up.

“I really got fed up,” he said. “I’m like, I just can’t believe all these lies and betrayals that went on. … The archdiocese is supposed to be people in charge that are responsible and morally ethical, and that’s not what they did.”

Becker was removed from the priesthood in 2004. Messages left at a Mayville number listed in his name weren’t returned. His file is among a few from Milwaukee that have already been made public. But Linneman said he still plans to read whatever comes out on July 1 because his attorneys told him the records will likely include some he hasn’t seen.

While certain church officials and attorneys for both sides have seen the roughly 6,000 pages of documents, the victims have not.

Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said the archdiocese had shared some files with some victims over the years but was reluctant to make them public because of privacy concerns. It eventually agreed to do so when it became clear that victims would hold up the bankruptcy case until the information came out. Some of the files contain graphic material, and people “should be prepared to be shocked,” he said.

At the same time, most of the priests’ names have been known since the archdiocese’s release of 43 with verified abuse claims against them in 2004. Two others, Ronald Engel and Donald Musinski, were added to the list later. The allegations against Musinski came to light only after the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2011 and his file will be released later, once it is complete, Topczewski said. Two other priests’ files aren’t being released because they involve single victims who could easily be identified.

The impact of church documents released elsewhere has varied greatly, said Terry McKiernan, who has spent more than a decade collecting and preserving clergy sex abuse records for BishopAccountability.org. In one of the biggest scandals involving the church, Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as the head of the Boston archdiocese within days of the 2002 release of child sex abuse documents that also described a priest abandoning his adult lover as she overdosed. But in other places, where files were too massive or disorganized for most people to make sense of them, they drew little attention, McKiernan said.Even when victims were successful in bringing the truth to light, some found it didn’t have the result they had hoped. Joelle Casteix, 42, of Newport Beach, Calif., was abused by a teacher at a Catholic high school in the 1980s. Documents in her case were made public in 2005 as part of a $100 million settlement with the Diocese of Orange, an experience she called “life-changing.”

“I got my human dignity back,” she said in an email. “I was able to get truth and power for the first time since I was 16. For years, people thought I was crazy. But now, everyone knows that I was right and truthful all along.”

Yet despite the publicity, her former teacher was able to keep his job at a Michigan college. Officials there see her as a disgruntled ex-girlfriend, Casteix said, adding that the situation “makes me ill.”

5 things to know

How many priests were involved? The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has verified claims of sexual abuse by 45 priests, including 23 who are still alive. None is allowed to work as a priest, and 15 have been officially defrocked. Most of them are accused of abuse that took place before 1990.

How many victims are there? It’s hard to say because some victims may not have come forward. But one former priest, Lawrence Murphy, has been accused of sexually abusing some 200 boys at a school for the deaf from 1950 to 1974. Other priests have been accused by only one person thus far. There are more than 570 sexual abuse claims pending in bankruptcy court, but some of those involve lay people or priests assigned to religious orders, not the archdiocese. Attorneys have not said specifically how many of the 570 claims relate to the 45 priests on the archdiocese’s restricted list.

How did clergy abuse cases end up in bankruptcy court? Abuse victims had long sought to hold the archdiocese accountable, but most didn’t come forward until well into adulthood, when it was too late under Wisconsin law to sue the church for negligence in supervising its priests. A 2007 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision gave them a window, saying the six-year limit in fraud cases didn’t start until the deception was uncovered. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2011, once it became clear that it could face a slew of lawsuits. It said it wouldn’t have the money to pay if those cases went against it.What’s in the documents the archdiocese is releasing by July 1? It’s hard to say for certain because no one has seen the collection yet except attorneys and certain church leaders. Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for Archbishop Jerome Listecki, has said it will include the personnel files of 42 priests, depositions of church leaders including New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who previously led the Milwaukee archdiocese, and records from the files of bishops and other key figures.

What happens next? The release of the documents has been important to sexual abuse victims, but it does not affect resolution of the bankruptcy case. Topczewski said the next step in that will be for the archdiocese to come up with a reorganization plan detailing how it will provide for victims and pay its expenses in the future. Mike Finnegan, an attorney representing many victims, says one focus for his legal team will be trying to get the archdiocese’s former insurers to cover abuse claims.

W. H. Auden wrote in his famous poem “September 1, 1939”, the terrible day the German army invaded Poland, that “all I have is a voice to undo the folded lie.”

The brave survivors of childhood rape and sexual assault of the Milwaukee Archdiocese from St. John’s School for the Deaf have been undoing the folded lies of the Milwaukee Catholic hierarchy and their Vatican overseers for a very long time: nearly four decades. Now these beautiful voices—which are really the single voice of justice for all victims of clergy sex crimes—will be heard and seen by a worldwide audience thanks to Oscar winning director Alex Gibney’s powerful new film, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God”, which will make its U.S. premier in Milwaukee on Friday.

Survivors and family members of priest predators of the Milwaukee Archdiocese are expected to be in attendance at the premier to welcome Gibney and his film, and will once again embrace these deaf survivor champions and advocates, several of whom are long-time local SNAP leaders.

Unfortunately, Fr. Lawrence Murphy, the predator priest who is the focus of Gibney’s film, is only one of literally dozens of clerics and church workers in the Milwaukee Archdiocese—at least as many as 144, according to recent filings in U.S. Federal Court—alleged to have raped and assaulted children and minors. And most of these recorded crimes against children, over 8,000 according to the court records, took place during a 25 year period from 1976 to 2002 when the Milwaukee Archdiocese was under the control of one man: Archbishop Rembert Weakland.

The Pope might have been in Rome but it was Weakland who was in Milwaukee. During his entire tenure as archbishop, Weakland concealed and transferred child molesting clerics from one parish and school to another without alerting police or notifying the public. In fact, Weakland knew there were so many priests assaulting children under his supervision that, according to his 2008 deposition, he never informed parishes with offender priests assigned, or once assigned to them, because, as he put it, that would entail notifying “nearly all” of the 300 parishes of the archdiocese and presumably, that’s the only job he would be doing. Exactly.

In another deposition, Weakland says he didn’t tell parents and families that he had secretly assigned a known diagnosed pedophile, Fr. Peter Burns, to their parish because they would have been OK with it. Tell that to the parents of the child who was raped by Burns after Weakland reassigned him and then the youngster killed himself several months later. On it goes, predator priest after predator priest.
And this is why Weakland is the chief defendant today in the fraud cases which have brought the archdiocese into Federal Bankruptcy Court.

That is why it is frustrating and fatiguing to have to once again see and hear the now admittedly softer spoken Weakland still peddling his self-serving, mostly fictional account of how he was the insider “good guy” who tried to do “something” about Murphy. This, of course, is nonsense, and very like the same excuse that defenders of the current Pope, Benedict XVI, use to explain Benedict’s inaction and favoritism for child molesting priests when he was in charge of the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It was in this role that Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was eventually put in charge of Murphy’s case and, as is well documented in Murphy’s once secret church file, pretty much did what Weakland had been doing with Murphy, along with nearly all of the other abusive priests of the Milwaukee archdiocese: nothing.

Weakland’s basic defense is what we hear from those who never reported Jerry Sandusky at Penn State to the police or the public: “I told Coach Paterno. He told me he knew best how to handle it and not to tell anyone else.” Apparently, Weakland too couldn’t tell anyone about Murphy because Ratzinger told him not to. So, like Sandusky, he had no choice but to allow Murphy continued free and unsupervised access to the boy’s locker room. There is no evidence, however, that Cardinal Ratzinger ever prohibited Weakland from informing the public, alerting parishes, or ordering Murphy into a secure facility with supervision.

Weakland also claims that both the criminal and church statutes and laws had expired on Murphy’s crimes. As for church “statutes” or so called “canon law,” these are not actual “laws” but internal church rules. American citizens are not required under the constitution to obey canon law. They are morally required to obey civil and criminal law, however, and contrary to Weakland’s assertion, Murphy could have been prosecuted, at least in Minnesota, but likely elsewhere, if he had been reported to police in those states because the criminal statutes on those crimes were, in fact, still active, right up until Murphy’s death.

Even more incriminatory are the notations in the Murphy file that the archdiocese was concerned that Murphy’s case might get into civil court or find its way into the press. That is why Weakland finally decided to “act” with Rome, after waiting nearly 20 years to do so. Weakland misleadingly writes Ratzinger that he had just “learned” about Murphy’s crimes when, in fact, he had left Murphy working in ministry and parishes in another Wisconsin diocese for years.

Ironically, Weakland says in the film that he had met Murphy “once” and found him “childlike”. This meeting took place after Weakland’s own church hired criminologist had told him that Murphy had likely sexually molested 200 deaf children and his pedophilia was so profound it was “untreatable” by mental health experts. What did Weakland do with this dangerous predator after meeting with him? Send him right back unsupervised into communities, parishes and schools in Northern Wisconsin.

But most damning of all are Weakland’s own private words on the subject. Soon after Murphy’s death in 1998, in response to a nun who has written Weakland asking him why Murphy’s funeral had not been publically advertised, Weakland explains: “I talked in Rome at great length about how to handle all of this,” he writes, “to protect Father Murphy’s good name I had to do what I did and keep this as quiet as possible.”

What’s more credible: Weakland’s interview for an HBO documentary or his own words in a private letter he wrote at the time of Murphy’s death?

As for Weakland’s further claim about how “painful” it was for him to tell the deaf community that Rome would not defrock Murphy, when the pedophile priest died, Weakland dispatched his auxiliary bishop Richard Sklba (who Weakland calls his “go to guy” on abuse cases in his deposition) to personally perform the service. Why is this significant? Because the secret church file shows that deaf victims of Murphy were begging Weakland and the archdiocese not to allow Murphy to be buried as a priest. Not only did Bishop Sklba perform the service and praise Murphy’s life and work, he dressed Murphy in full priestly vestments and the casket was open. And to this day, Murphy’s gravestone reads: “Reverend Lawrence Murphy.”

Fortunately, Weakland’s actual involvement in Murphy’s case and many other serial child molesting priest cases in the Milwaukee Archdiocese have been widely reported, especially in the Milwaukee area but also in the national media. Today anyone can examine for themselves the mountains of evidence—even with 60,000 pages of documents still to be released—of Weakland’s direct involvement in covering up for several high profile serial child molesting priests besides Murphy—such as Frs. Becker, Widera , McArthur, Burns, Effinger, Hanser and many, many others. (Click on this link, select Wisconsin, and click on Archdiocese of Milwaukee for a complete listing of substantiated offenders http://bishop-accountability.org/priestdb/PriestDBbydiocese.html; for a detailed history of Weakland’s involvement with predator priests, including religious order clerics, up until more recent document releases, click here.)

Finally, as if more evidence of Weakland’s character and conduct is required, when Weakland’s lawyers won an unprecedented Wisconsin Supreme Court decision in the 1990’s that immunized pedophile priests and bishops from any and all lawsuits against them—based on a controversial interpretation of the 1st amendment, the only such ruling in U.S. history—Weakland went after victims who had filed cases for court costs, even where the priest admitted to Weakland that he had sexually assaulted the plaintiff as a child and where Weakland had transferred that priest into that child’s parish with a prior history of known crimes.

One St. John’s survivor extensively interviewed in Gibney’s film, Gary Smith, was forced to sign a legal release with the archdiocese in the late 1970’s when then Archbishop Cousins required him to apologize to church officials in order to receive $5,000 for counseling. The film notes it took 20 years before Smith received the money. What it doesn’t mention is that it is Weakland who paid the check, but only after Smith was forced to sign yet another legal release. When Smith approached Weakland’s successor, Timothy Dolan, after Dolan offered small financial settlements of $20,000 to $50,000 to victims in exchange for—you guessed it—legal releases, Dolan’s lawyers told Smith he could not be helped because he had already signed a release under Weakland. All three archbishops acted exactly the same way in their treatment of Smith. And you can now add a fourth to this ignoble list, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, who is currently attempting to throw out Smith and over 550 other victim claims from federal bankruptcy court. As far as Smith is concerned, and all victims from the Milwaukee Archdiocese–whether its Cousins, Weakland, Dolan or Listecki–what’s the difference which archbishop it is when the results are pretty much the same?

Finally, Weakland has never apologized publically to victim/survivors and their families, and he could have used the interview with Gibney to perform this one decent gesture, knowing victims of priests he was responsible for would be undoubtedly watching the film. He could have apologized for his written remarks he once made in the Catholic newspaper that not all victims of priests “are so innocent” and that some victims are “street wise and savvy.” He could have apologized when in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal, around the very time he was sending secret reports about Murphy to Ratzinger, he opines that once a priest loses sexual interest in a child that is “when the squealing starts” and “you have to deal with it.” Perhaps he had in mind some of the deaf victims of Murphy who were causing him so much consternation. And he could apologize as to why he commissioned a bronze relief of himself in the cathedral, which is still there, depicting himself in the place of Christ shepherding little children, when so many children’s lives were destroyed under his care.

Victim/survivors in the Milwaukee Archdiocese wrongly assumed that when Weakland released his “memoirs” in 2008–where he makes the laughable defense that he didn’t know that when he became archbishop that sex with children was a crime–it would be, mercifully, the last we would have to hear from him. We were wrong. But at least this time all the folded lies of Weakland are ultimately reduced to sheer insignificance in Gibney’s epic and sweeping documentary because we finally get to hear for ourselves the words of the St. John’s survivors.

And we can never hear enough from these brave men. Ever.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 23 years and have more than 12,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our national website is SNAPnetwork.org. The local Wisconsin website is SNAPwisconsin.com.